Familiar

Amazing how familiar Beijing is.  It has brought a smile to my face seeing sites that bring back memories.  I am ever so grateful that we were here earlier "checking it out" and learning the ropes.  The stress has been lightened as we already have so much figured out.  We aren't completely out of the woods as there are new things to learn, new places to get use to and new tricks to figure out.  One example is church and the subway.  We already have our cards for the subway and know the stops, plus we know where church is but we had to learn the best way from our new place.  We underestimated our travel time and ended up showing up an hour late.  Lucky for us it was a conference so we were only a half hour late.  😁

I am also excited with how much I can understand language wise.  The boys and I have been more comfortable trying out our language skills.  I have found myself in more sticky spots this way as the Chinese then think I know more than I do.  Soon though, I will be able to understand and say even more!  I am looking forward to the day when I jump into someone's conversation after they have been talking about us.  I can do that a little bit but I want to really be able to know what to say.

We are pretty much settled into our apartment.  It is big enough to say "wings".  We have the boys' wing, the guest wing and the master wing.  Our stuff seems puny compared to the space it is suppose to fill.  Don't worry we will soon fill it up with the arrival of the rest of our stuff and the purchases we'll make during our time here.

This video is more of an experiment than anything else.  Hopefully in the future the boys will be doing the video with editing and all the good stuff that goes with it.

Here are some fun pictures of Drake adapting to our new home.

This is our imported keep on the shelf milk.  Our milk is from Australia and our butter is from New Zealand.  We do drink milk from China sometimes, but our most favorite is Banana Milk!

This picture is from our very first night here, at this moment we hadn't even seen our apartment yet, Drake was busy making himself at home in the indoor play area.  Can you spot him?

This is the outdoor playground.  Our windows look out over this area which makes it convenient for mom to keep an eye on the boys as they "watch" Drake play.

Dad watching Drake by taking him to Mickey D's.

Mama's little helper.  Drake definitely rules the roost here.